Bedouin youth were angrier and more psychologically distressed than their Jewish counterparts by the rocket fire in November, according to a new BGU study. It is the first follow-up study after the two weeks of rocket fire and subsequent Pillar of Defense military operation.
Prof. Shifra Sagy, Dr. Sarah Abu-Kaf and Dr. Orna Braun-Lewensohn of the Conflict Management and Resolution Program interviewed 78 Jewish youths and 91 Bedouin youths from the South of Israel about their reaction to the barrage of rockets fired at the South by Hamas in Gaza. “The Bedouin youth were not only more anxious but also much angrier about the situation than their Jewish counterparts,” says Sagy, incumbent of the Shane Family Chair in Education, director of the program and chair of The Martin-Springer Center for the Study of Conflict Management and Resolution. “The lower level of their coping resources appears as a contributing factor to the Bedouins’ psychological distress.”
Many more Bedouin youth than Jewish youth also believed that the military operation would have neither a short- nor a long-term effect on stopping the rockets, the researchers found. Conversely, the Bedouin youth were much more likely to believe that the Israeli-Arab Conflict would be resolved peacefully than their Jewish counterparts, who believed that more wars and conflict were likely before peace could be achieved.
According to Sagy, one of the ways to prevent psychological distress is to have a high level of personal resilience, which is dependent on coherence – a psychological term referring to how one deals with the world cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally. Measurements of Bedouin youths’ coherence were lower than Jewish youths (average Bedouin 4.00, Jews 4.37: scale of 1-7), “which would also explain their increased psychological stress, explains Sagy.
